A crisis in their own words.

“It was as though I were being killed by an unseen knife, and I felt that whoever was pressing this knife hated me and wanted something more than my death.”

“I told my doctor and also my priest that it wasn’t me; I didn’t want to feel that way. But I sounded crazy so I stopped saying it.”

“No hospital in Rome would accept me just because I had a fever… I was dismissed with a bill of health that could have been the envy of every athlete.”

“[A]ll the analyses were good and the psychological tests declared me perfectly sane… For years, in France, I wandered between clinics and hospitals, with no results.”

“The psychiatrist concluded: ‘Here we have an instance of depression in which the patient believes herself to be damned. The Church speaks of the devil, but it is just melancholy.’ The doctors never even considered contacting a priest.”

“How many times she tried to explain her feelings to priests! They never understood her… The doctors simply prescribed larger doses of tranquilizers and sleeping pills.”

“After praying over me for a long time they gave up and said it might be a mental illness because the prayers weren’t working… Finally, they came to the conclusion that I must be mentally ill and the Church could not help.”

“There are many exorcists in Poland but these priests are very confused, although they think they are wise and know best.”

“We can find some priest or bishop who is very traditional but who, let us say it clearly, does not believe in exorcisms because he does not believe in demonic possession.”

“Many times I’ve had priests come to assist me in my exorcisms, who have said to me, ‘Look, Don Amorth, at first I didn’t believe it, but now I really do!’”

“Here in Spain, if a psychiatrist grants an interview and says that he believes in demonic possession, he risks having his boss open an investigation against him… he risks losing his position at a hospital or as a professor at a university.”

“Not only was she told that there were no exorcists and that there was no need of one, but she was also ridiculed for her fears and told not to give in to her imagination, because priests had much more important work to do than to deal with foolishness.”

“How about those who are tormented by the evil one? Aren’t they poor? I belonged to this needy category for eighteen years, but every priest I contacted understood nothing, absolutely nothing of this poverty of mine, and gave me no help.”

“[W]hen they realized I was possessed, they just stopped because it was too overwhelming for them. . . They completely rejected me, avoided any kind of services, confession.”

“I have talked to my priest and he is sympathetic. He tells me to go to confession, but it is not enough. I need help.”

“My psychiatrist came and told me I had to be admitted. I refused because I knew I could not get the help I needed in a hospital.”

“After talking and talking, Father said in essence that I was a nice, confused lady who needed a psychiatrist. That hurt, not because I hadn’t heard it before, but because I hadn’t come all the way to a distant city to hear it.”

“Then I asked him pointblank about the voice. He was very distressed but said he thought the voice was mine.”

“The six women who were there were trying to deliver me of several demonic forces… They yelled at me, threw me around and poured oil in my mouth to drink… It left me quite confused, frightened and tormented.”

“[A] group of men — the pastor and his assistants — took me to a separate room and simply tried to force the evil spirit out of me. When I resisted, they used physical force. . . they tied my hands, they sat on my legs, someone sat on my arm…”

“I felt they were crossing my boundaries but when I tried to protest they saw it as the manifestation of evil. It was painful and I was bruised and torn.”

“After a while I felt a cold, almost frozen, dew fall on my head and on the rest of my body. My fever left me for the first time in almost one year… The light of day was returning, the song of the birds ceased to sound like the cawing of crows, and the noises around me were not obsessive anymore; they were simply noises.”

“[A]ll my pain, had been caused by the rage of ‘someone’ who hated me, and I was not crazy. ‘It is true,’ I kept repeating to myself in the car, ‘it is all true.’”

“I was not afraid. I let go completely and the demon left. God held me very gently… It feels strange, but good, just to be me. The voice and the connection in my head are gone.”

“I called on the name of Jesus, and I was delivered. It was like a heavenly vacuum cleaner came down over my shoulders and just sucked this thing out.”

“[T]he most important moment for me was when I recognized the devil’s existence… I finally understood that I was not mad. I would not have been able to do this without the intervention of the exorcist, and my vocation would have been ruined.”

“[F]or the first time in many years, my wife slept through the night with a restful, quiet sleep, without pills or tranquilizers.”